WASHINGTON — Carrying banners and signs with quotes from Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato Si’,” hundreds of Catholics joined the People’s Climate March to call for moral and prayerful action to protect creation.

On a sweltering day that reinforced the message about the need to respond to climate change, the 91-degree temperature at 3 p.m. April 29 tied a 43-year-old Washington record for the date, many in the Catholic contingent said they felt they had a moral obligation to witness in the streets.

Parishioners from various parishes in New York City hold sunflower signs during the People’s Climate March in Washington April 29. (CNS/Dennis Sadowski)

“We march for our grandchildren. Stop global warming,” read one sign propped up in the back of St. Dominic Church in Washington, where about 300 people gathered before the march for Mass celebrated by Dominican Father Hyacinth Marie Cordell, the parish’s parochial vicar.

“The Vatican is solar. What about US?” read another. “We resist, we build, we rise,” read a sign from St. Francis and Therese Catholic Worker Community in Worcester, Mass.

Underlying the messages on the signs and banners were people who shared a heartfelt concern to carry out Pope Francis’ call in his 2015 encyclical to live responsibly with the planet, remember the needs of others around the world and to reduce consumption and energy usage for the sake of God’s creation.

They also wanted to send a message to President Donald Trump that his policies on the environment and energy development do not follow the pontiff’s call to protect Earth.

For Manny and Mary Hotchkiss, the march was their second in two weeks. Both scientists, the couple from Portland, Oregon, joined a regional March for Science in New Orleans April 22 as they made their way on a cross-country trip to a meeting of Maryknoll affiliates in Ossining, New York.

After the Mass, Mary Hotchkiss, 72, a chemist, said the couple’s involvement was required by their Catholic faith. Manny Hotchkiss, 74, a mechanical engineer, expressed dismay about the president’s policies.

“The most important thing I see with this political scene, and it brings a tear to my eye to think about it, is that everything I tried to teach our kids growing up (about science) is fully rejected by the current administration,” he said.

The 300 people at the Mass heard Father Cordell call for an “ecological conversion” during his homily. He said each person must act in any way possible to protect God’s creation: reducing energy usage; limiting waste; choosing carpooling or biking and walking more; and buying less.

“We can learn increasingly to act not only with our own good and convenience in mind, but above all to think and choose according to what is best for all, especially for the poor and for future generations,” the Dominican said. “This ecological conversion calls us to self-examination, to make an inventory of our lives and habits so that we can learn to be better stewards of our common home and its resources, which are meant for the good of all.”

He said such steps require a revolution of the heart, as Pope Francis has called each person to undertake. He described it as a “change toward responsibility and virtue, a transition to thinking about the common good, future generations, the poor, other living beings, God’s glory and the environment in all of our decisions instead of thinking only in terms of a short-term, fleeting and superficial good or convenience for ourselves.”

Sister Kathy Sherman, a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph in LaGrange Park, Illinois, was pleased to hear Father Cordell stress the encyclical’s themes.

“I feel like I’m marching for the children, for the future,” she said. “Earth is getting bad for us. If we don’t do something there’s not going to be anything like we’ve known for the future generations, and it breaks my heart.”

Other members of Sister Sherman’s congregation joined a satellite march in Chicago, but she made the trek to Washington on her own because she said she felt it was important to take a message directly to administration officials.

“I think it’s so essential that we connect climate degradation with economic and racial justice,” Sister Sherman added. “It’s just the whole sense of the oneness.”

A large banner mounted on a 12-foot bamboo pole carried by Malcolm Byrnes, 57, a member of St. Camillus Parish in Silver Spring, Md., was one of several that quoted the pope’s encyclical. It read: “We need to reject a magical conception of the market.”

“We have to bring things back into focus and see climate change as a human issue involving all of humanity, especially the poor,” Byrnes said as he waited for the Mass-goers to begin walking to the assembly point for faith communities near the U.S. Capitol.

Byrnes said Pope Francis’ words had inspired him to consider his own actions in response to the divisive language the president and members of his administration have used during the first 100 days in office.

“We have to be activist,” he said. “We have to continue to put the pressure on and to be active. Doing it as a Catholic is ever more poignant for me.”

March organizers said the event had been planned as a follow-up to the September 2014 People’s Climate March in New York City before Trump’s election in November. The April 29 march was led by indigenous people who already are facing disrupted lives as the climate warms and causes drought and rising ocean levels.

The march kicked off less than 48 hours after the Environmental Protection Agency began to revamp its website, taking down pages devoted to climate science. The agency said in a statement late April 28 that the information was “under review.”

Some of the Catholic marchers, a multicultural mix of young and old, families, and clergy, religious and laity, said they never had been involved in such a massive event, but that it was time to put their faith into action.

Rosio Ramirez, 58, a member of St. Jerome Church in New York City, said as she waited for the march to start that she decided to travel to Washington “for our rights.”

“This president does not believe in science, so I’m trying to raise my voice for my grandson, his future,” said the native of Mexico City.

Along the march route on Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House, Nancy Lorence, a member of St. Francis Xavier Parish in New York City, said personal actions are crucial if people of faith are going to make a difference. She carried a colorful cardboard sunflower on a short stick that read, “Catholics 4 the EPA,” one of 45 similar signs that she and others making the trip had made.

“We feel like ‘Laudato Si’’ calls us to be in the streets, as Pope Francis says, and be active on the social justice issues and climate change,” Lorence told CNS.

“I’ve read enough to really think that this is an emergency,” Lorence continued. “It might not affect us directly right now. But I think we are all called to think about the common good. We’re all called to think about the least of these, and the people who are the least of these are being affected by climate change.”

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WASHINGTON — Pope Francis has appointed Father Roy Edward Campbell Jr., who is pastor of St. Joseph Church in Largo, Maryland, as an auxiliary bishop of Washington.

The appointment was announced March 8 in Washington by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Pope Francis has appointed Father Roy Edward Campbell Jr., who is pastor of St. Joseph Church in Largo, Md., as an auxiliary bishop of Washington. (CNS/Archdiocese of Washington)

Bishop-designate Campbell, 69, has been pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Largo, a Washington suburb, since 2010. He is a member of the archdiocese’s clergy personnel board, the vocations board and the college of consultors.

His episcopal ordination will be April 21 at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington.

Raised in the Washington archdiocese, he worked in the retail banking industry in the Washington-Baltimore area until taking early retirement in 2002. The following year he entered the seminary to study for the priesthood. He was ordained for the archdiocese by Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl May 26, 2007.

Bishop-designate Campbell “brings to his new ministry recognized talent and demonstrated ability,” Cardinal Wuerl said in a statement. “He also bears witness to the great cultural and ethnic richness of the Church of Washington reflected in all of the faithful, lay, religious and clergy.”

The appointment was a surprise, Bishop-designate Campbell said in video posted on the archdiocesan website.

“It is a great honor that the Lord himself has bestowed upon me through the Holy Father and quite honestly through our archbishop, Cardinal Wuerl. But it is also very humbling,” he said.

“The only thing that I was looking forward to doing in answering our Lord’s call is to be a priest for his people, to love and serve those he’s called me to, his children, my brothers and sisters. And if he is calling me to serve on a larger scale than a parish as a bishop, then I know I will have his grace, his direction and his love to help me do so,” he said.

The road to the priesthood for Bishop-designate Campbell began in late 1995. Leaving work in Baltimore, he met a person on the street asking for food and took him to get something to eat, according to his biography on the archdiocese website.

“What he said to me I have never forgotten: ‘You’re a Christian, aren’t you?” Bishop-designate Campbell recalled. “My answer to him is just as memorable: ‘I try to be.’ I saw Jesus in that man, as clearly as I saw the man himself. That encounter started my reflection on my relationship with Jesus in a very different way.”

In 1999, Bishop-designate Campbell entered the archdiocese’s permanent diaconate program and four years later entered Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary in Weston, Massachusetts, to begin his priestly formation.

Bishop-designate Campbell was born Nov. 19, 1947, in Charles County, Maryland, and grew up in Washington. He said his mother’s devotion to her Catholic faith demonstrated the importance of having deep love of God in daily life.

A graduate of Howard University and the University of Virginia’s Graduate School of Retail Bank Management, he had a 33-year career with Bank of America, working his way up from teller to vice president and project manager. He also has degrees in zoology, anthropology and chemistry.

After his 2007 ordination, his assignments at Washington parishes included: parochial vicar at St. Augustine Church, 2007-2008; pastoral and sacramental care of the African-American community at Immaculate Conception Parish, 2007-2008; and pastor at Assumption Parish, 2008-2010.

The Archdiocese of Washington covers the District of Columbia and five Maryland counties. Out of a total population of over 2.5 million people, about 647,000, or 22 percent, are Catholic.

Bishop-designate Campbell said he learned about his appointment while in an airport in Florida, as he was waiting for a flight to return to the Archdiocese of Washington after celebrating a Black History Month Mass in Pensacola. He received the news in a phone call from Archbishop Pierre.

“I am amazed. I am very honored, and I do not feel worthy. But I trust the Holy Spirit,” said Bishop-designate Campbell, who will be the nation’s ninth active African-American Catholic bishop. Seven African-American Catholic bishops are retired.

As a bishop, he said he sees his role as “continuing to love and serve the people of God.”

Quoting Pope Francis that priests should be “shepherds with the smell of sheep,” Bishop-designate Campbell said he has always looked at his priesthood as “being with the people, to live in their lives and to offer them God’s sacraments, graces and whatever else they need.”

Richard Szczepanowski contributed to this story.

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WASHINGTON — Tens of thousands of pro-lifers filled the grounds near the Washington Monument and marched up Constitution Avenue to the U.S. Supreme Court Jan. 27 as both a protest of legalized abortion and a celebration of successful pro-life efforts across the country.

Students from the Diocese of Lansing, Mich., holds signs during the annual March for Life in Washington Jan. 27. (CNS photo/Jaclyn Lippelmann, Catholic Standard)

In years past, the March for Life, which takes place on or near Jan. 22 to mark the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton that legalized abortion virtually on demand, has been almost a battle cry for the uphill and constant fight faced by those in the pro-life movement hoping for more abortion restrictions and ultimately an end to abortion.

This year’s March for Life, under mostly sunny skies and 40-degree temperatures, was decidedly more upbeat, in part because one of the first speakers was Vice President Mike Pence: the first time a vice president attended the rally.(See story below.)

Kellyanne Conway, special adviser to Trump, and the first on the speakers’ list to address the group, holding aloft placards but none of the usual giant banners, which were banned for security reasons, similarly got plenty of cheers when she said: “This is a new day, a new dawn for life.”

The scheduled presence of the vice president, only announced the day before, required the rally perimeter to be fenced in and the crowd to enter through long lines that had formed at security checks. Participants seemed unfazed by the required wait, taking it in stride with the day. Some pulled out their pre-packed lunches and started eating, others prayed the rosary. These marchers are used to hardships from weather conditions alone at the annual march.

Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, noted that the group has been marching in all types of bad weather over the years. She also pointed out that amid recent discussion about crowd size at events in Washington, it was hard to measure the number of people that day or for the total who have come out for the annual march over the past four decades. “The only number we care about is the 58 million” lost to abortion since it was legalized, she said.

As in years past, the crowd was primarily young, with a lot of high school and college-age groups. It was something the speakers took note of, saying this generation would not only keep the pro-life movement going but bring about changes.

Mary Ann Vann, a retiree who made the trip from Trussville, Alabama, for her sixth march, said the most exciting thing for her each time she has taken part is seeing the young people.

Vann, a parishioner at Holy Infant of Prague Parish in Trussville, said she hoped the energy at the march could be channeled into everyday support for the pro-life movement, something she is involved with on a regular basis with sidewalk counseling, volunteering at crisis pregnancy centers and helping young mothers with basic needs. She also said she is disheartened by hearing those who say pro-lifers are only concerned about babies because she and her fellow volunteers not only bring pregnant women to their doctor’s appointments but also help pay their medical costs.

Jim Klarsch, a member of St. Clement Parish in St. Louis, who came with a busload of eighth-graders, also isinvolved with pro-life work with the Knights of Columbus at his parish. In Washington on his second march, he said the experience was “empowering.”

Standing alongside Constitution Avenue waiting for the march to begin, he said the crowd, which was already filling the street to each side and behind him as far as the eye could see, reinforced his feeling that “this is not just a day but a lifelong mission.”

“You’re part of a pilgrimage. You take that experience home and you live it,” he added.

Some noted that the march had a distinctly different tone than the Women’s March on Washington six days before. Two sisters who stood on the sidelines with some of the few handmade signs at the march, described themselves as feminists and said they found the pro-life march more positive and less angry.

“This is a message of love,” said Bridget Donofrio, from Washington, holding aloft a poster-board sign with words written with a black marker: “Respect all women born and unborn.”

Many of the march signs were pre-made placards with messages such as “I am pro abundant life” or “Defund Planned Parenthood” and “I am the pro-life generation.”

On the Metro, when two older women asked a young woman for directions and pointed to the group with signs that they wanted to join, the woman looked up from her phone and asked if there was a protest today.

“It’s the March for Life,” one woman said. A few seconds later she added: “It’s not a protest; it’s more of a celebration.”

Follow Zimmermann on Twitter: @carolmaczim.

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WASHINGTON — After being removed from a list of partner organizations for the Women’s March on Washington, members of a pro-life group based in Texas decided they still would take to the streets Jan. 21 to take part in the historic and massive event. And they said it was a good decision.

“Overall, it was an amazing experience,” said Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, of New Wave Feminists, one of the groups removed as a march sponsor.

Mary Solitario, 21, center, a Catholic from Virginia, joins a pro-life demonstration outside the U.S. Supreme Court prior to the Women’s March on Washington Jan. 21. (CNS/Bob Roller)

“We were prepared for confrontation and instead were supported by so many women,” said Herndon-De La Rosa told Catholic News Service.

The group posted photos on their Facebook and Instagram accounts of their participation, holding signs that read, “I’m a pro-life feminist.”

“They kept coming up and telling us how glad they were that we were there and how, even though they didn’t necessarily agree on the abortion issue, they thought it wrong that we were removed as partners,” said Herndon-De La Rosa. “It was very cool.”

Women like Herndon-De La Rosa marched for a cause. In her group’s case, they are concerned about President Donald J. Trump’s changing position on abortion and say they wanted him to know they’d be watching what he does on pro-life issues such as abortion, the death penalty and violence.

Others marched to voice disapproval of the new president. Many came from places near and far and after filing past the streets near Washington’s most important institutions, they filled the area near the White House where its newest residents have a direct line of view toward the Washington Monument.

They were hoping the newly minted president would hear or see them and consider what they had to say.

Margie Legowski, a parishioner at Washington’s Holy Trinity Catholic Church, said she took to the streets “in support of values that I don’t see in this administration.” Those values include equality for women and also caring about immigrants who need help.

“I want to take a stand. I don’t want to be passive about it,” she said. “In our faith we’re called to solidarity.”

That means standing up against wealth inequality and defending the vulnerable, she said. It’s a means of building the kingdom of God on earth and she doesn’t see that as a priority for the new president.

Like a lot of women attending the march, she hosted other female friends, nieces and a sister-in-law who lives in Germany, all of whom felt enough conviction to travel to Washington and lend their presence to the numbers of participants.

Jean Johnson, another Holy Trinity parishioner, attended the march with 11 nieces and four grandnieces. They arrived in Washington from around the country, some driving long distances and picking up other family members along the way. She said she felt pride in her large group, particularly because they adopted the values of her Irish Catholic immigrant parents and are concerned about the common good, for women and for others.

She wasn’t marching against a cause or person, but rather marching for women’s dignity, she said.

“I went to a Catholic school where the nuns told me I’m a temple,” she said. “The march is for that dignity.”

She was excited to share that moment with a new generation in her family, she said.

Some women who attended said they didn’t feel president Trump valued that dignity, particularly after a leaked recording was aired during the campaign in which he was heard making lewd comments about women to an entertainment reporter.

Jack Hogan, who once worked for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the U.S. bishops’ domestic anti-poverty program, said he was attending the march with neighbors and friends because he feels that what Trump has said goes against Catholic social teaching. He said he was hoping other Catholics, as organizations and groups, as well as church leaders, would speak up more forcefully for the poor and vulnerable at this time.

He said worries about the new president’s stance on climate change, on the poor and other issues that seem to go against what Pope Francis, as the leader of the Catholic Church, says are important. He said he feels Trump lives and espouses the opposite of what the church values, including family.

As a citizen, “what (Trump) stands for is not what our participatory democracy stands for,” Hogan said, adding that he could not celebrate his inauguration. Ever since Trump was elected, Hogan said he has participated in various protests and prayer events with other organizations because he worries about what will happen to the vulnerable in society. The Women’s March was one of those instances, he said.

While organizers said the event was to “promote women’s equality and defend other marginalized groups,” some pro-life groups that wanted to be partners in the march were either removed as official sponsors days before the march or their application to be a sponsor was ignored.

In an interview before the march, Herndon-De La Rosa told CNS no one contacted her group to give them the news they were taken off a roster of sponsors, but they found out after a flurry of stories about it. The groups And Then There Were None and Students for Life of America also were denied or taken off the Women’s March roster.

However, many members of those organizations attended the march.

Follow Guidos on Twitter: @CNS_Rhina.

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Buses are leaving from parishes around the diocese for the annual March for Life, which will take place Jan. 27 in Washington, D.C. These were taken from parish bulletins.

• The Church of the Holy Child in Brandywine Hundred in Wilmington is sponsoring a bus. The cost is $30. The bus will depart by 7:15 a.m. and return at approximately 6:30 p.m. Contact Nancy Frick at (302) 529-5738 or nancyfrick93@verizon.net. Read more »

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WASHINGTON — The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities has called for increased efforts and “renewed vigor” to stop legalized physician-assisted suicide after the practice was approved by voters in Colorado and the District of Columbia City Council.

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York urged Catholics to join medical professionals, disability rights groups and others “in fighting for the authentic care” of people facing terminal illness in a statement released Nov. 21.

New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan speaks Nov. 14 during the annual fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. (CNS photo/Bob Roller)

“The act of prescribing a fatal, poisonous dose, moreover, undermines the very heart of medicine,” Cardinal Dolan said. “Doctors vow to do no harm, and yet assisted suicide is the ultimate abandonment of their patients.”

His concern comes after voters in Colorado passed a physician-assisted suicide measure that was on the ballot Nov. 8. The law also allows insurance companies to refuse treatment of patients they consider terminal.

Colorado became the sixth state in the nation with a so-called “right-to-die law,” joining Washington, Oregon, California, Vermont and Montana.

In Washington, D.C. City Council members in a second vote Nov. 15 approved the “Death with Dignity Act” that permits physicians in the district to legally prescribe the drugs to patients who have been deemed mentally competent and who have received a terminal diagnosis of six months or less. Under the measure, third parties are allowed to administer the drugs used in the procedure. The bill goes to Mayor Muriel Bowser to veto it, sign it or let it become law without any action on her part. If it becomes law, it would be subject to congressional review before it takes affect.

Cardinal Dolan called the district’s measure “the most expansive and dangerous so far” because it opens “the door to even further coercion and abuse.”

“Every suicide is tragic, whether someone is young or old, healthy or sick,” the cardinal added. “But the legalization of doctor-assisted suicide creates two classes of people: those whose suicides are to be prevented at any cost, and those whose suicides are deemed a positive good.

“We remove weapons and drugs that can cause harm to one group, while handing deadly drugs to the other, setting up yet another kind of life-threatening discrimination,” he continued. “This is completely unjust. Our inherent human dignity does not wane with the onset of illness or incapacity, and so all are worthy of protection.”

Seriously ill people require “authentic support, including doctors fully committed to their welfare and pain management as they enter their final days,” the statement said. “Patients need our assurance that they are not a burden; that it is a privilege to care for them as we ourselves hope to be cared for one day. A compassionate society devotes more attention, not less, to members facing the most vulnerable times in their lives.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement on assisted suicide 2011 titled “To Live Each Day with Dignity,” the full text is online at http://bit.ly/2ga5cht.

WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia City Council Nov. 1 moved one step closer to allowing doctors to prescribe lethal medications to terminally ill patients who want to end their lives.

The council voted 11-2 to pass the “Death with Dignity Act” that would allow a physician to legally prescribe the drugs to patients who have been deemed mentally competent and who have received a terminal diagnosis of six months or less. Read more »

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WASHINGTON — Builders, church leaders, choir members and journalists gathered atop eight floors of scaffolding, 159 feet high, in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception Oct. 28 for the blessing of the workspace where a new mosaic will be installed on the shrine’s Trinity Dome.

Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington addresses media and workers at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception prior Oct. 28 before blessing the shrine’s Trinity Dome and the workers. A mosaic project to complete the dome is scheduled to be finished in December 2017. (CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn)

“It will be a wonder to behold,” said Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of the dome, which is expected to be completed by the end of next year. The mosaic will depict the Trinity, Mary and 13 saints associated with the United States or the national shrine, the four evangelists and words from the Nicene Creed.

The finished dome also will mark the completion of the national shrine, according to the original architectural plans for the church set to mark its centennial in 2020, the 100th anniversary of the placement of its foundational stone.

During the blessing, Cardinal Wuerl offered prayers for the success of the project and the safety of the workers involved. He said the shrine puts into “image form” the message of the Gospel and does so “in a way that everyone can bask in its beauty.”

He said the finished dome, with its emphasis on American saints, will remind people of the “face of who we are and the face of God.” He also said it will reflect “living images of God and living images of everything we are capable of being.”

In introductory remarks, Msgr. Walter Rossi, rector of the national shrine, stressed the parallels between the mosaic design on the dome and the very character of the shrine itself, representing a mosaic of Catholic parishioners from every corner of the globe.

He said a one-time collection for the dome work will take place on Mother’s Day, May 14, 2017. The last time a national collection was done for the shrine was in 1953 when it was being built.

The mosaic work is being done at the Travisanutto Giovanni mosaic company in Spilimbergo, Italy, and will be shipped to the national shrine in 30,000 sections weighing 24 tons and composed of more than 14 million pieces of glass.

Cardinal Wuerl, who blessed the work site, the workers and those present, urged the group of about 90 people at the ceremony to be sure they touched the wall of the dome before they left “because you’ll never have a chance to do it again.”

Remind yourself, he said, that this is “the completion of a 100-year project” which reflects to whoever comes in this building that God is with us.

Follow Zimmermann on Twitter: @carolmaczim.

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WASHINGTON — Those involved in the administration of law should seek justice and mercy in their work, Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis said Oct. 2.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer speaks with Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl after the annual Red Mass Oct. 2 at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington. The Mass traditionally marks the start of the court year, including the opening of the Supreme Court term. (CNS photo/Joshua Roberts, Reuters)

“Those two virtues must intersect in our lives and actions,” said the archbishop, who was the homilist at the 64th annual Red Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington.

The Red Mass in the nation’s capital is celebrated just before the Supreme Court begins its term in October; opening day for the court this year was Oct. 3.

The Mass seeks God’s blessing and guidance on those who work in the law, including judges, diplomats, government officials and attorneys. The Mass also was attended by university officials and law professors and students.

Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl was the main celebrant of the Mass, which was attended by five Supreme Court justices: Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. and Supreme Court Associate Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Other government officials at the Mass included U.S. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch; U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr.; and Denis McDonough, President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.

Archbishop Hebda noted that those present at the Red Mass felt the absence of Antonin Scalia, a Catholic who faithfully attended the Mass during his nearly three decades as a Supreme Court associate justice. Scalia died Feb. 13 at age 79.

“He (Scalia) was someone who seemed to understand the necessity of exploring the connection between justice and mercy,” the Minnesota archbishop said. “In addressing law students at the University of St. Thomas in my archdiocese just last year, shortly before he passed away, he stressed the importance of their moral formation, stating that ‘the rule of law is always second to the law of love.’”

With that statement, Scalia was not showing a lack of appreciation for the rule of law, but he was demonstrating “a heightened appreciation for the importance of the law of love and for the mercy that flows from it in the practice of law and in the administration of justice,” Archbishop Hebda said.

Noting that Pope Francis has declared a Jubilee Year of Mercy in the church to reflect on God’s infinite mercy and the call for believers to be instruments of mercy, the Red Mass homilist said the pope “has noted that mercy ‘does not approach cases, but persons and their pain.’” The pope, he added, has said, “Mercy gets its hands dirty. It touches, it gets involved, it gets caught up with others.”

Archbishop Hebda said this personal approach to sharing mercy is especially important for the work of law. “We need to remember that real people are at the heart of what we do and are affected by the decisions we make,” he said.

The Minnesota archbishop said the Catholic Church respects the important work for the common good carried out by government leaders and those who administer justice.

“Men and women of goodwill throughout this nation depend on you to protect their liberties,” Archbishop Hebda said, noting how Pope Francis during his visit to the White House last year encouraged public servants to build a tolerant and inclusive society that safeguards people’s rights and rejects unjust discrimination.

Gathering together to pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance in the administration of justice is an appropriate response to facing difficult challenges, he said, noting that this year’s liturgy was being held “at this critical moment in our nation’s history, at this time when America seems to be almost paralyzed by a political polarization that impedes our ability to address effectively a whole host of pressing needs.”

Archbishop Hebda noted several contemporary problems “in a society in which shopping malls and discos and schools have all too often become places of unthinkable horror, at a time when old hatreds and prejudices seem to be rearing their ugly heads, or when our first freedoms are so readily put at risk.”

But he said that through prayer and action, people can take on the “privilege role as the hands of God’s mercy” to bring healing to the world, a work that people are called to do together, and then “we can, by God’s grace and the work of the Holy Spirit, do amazing things.”

Noting the importance of common prayer and mutual support, Archbishop Hebda said that can foster “faith capable of moving the mountains of despair and division, faith capable of pursuing justice while manifesting mercy, (and) faith capable of making a difference in our lives and in our communities.”

The Red Mass in Washington is sponsored by the John Carroll Society, an organization that provides spiritual, intellectual, charitable and social opportunities for Catholic professionals and business men and women in service to the archbishop of Washington.

The concelebrants included Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States; Archbishop Hebda; Bishop Paul S. Loverde of Arlington, Virginia; Auxiliary Bishop Richard B. Higgins of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services; and Washington Auxiliary Bishops Barry C. Knestout and Mario E. Dorsonville. Twenty-one priests also concelebrated the Mass.

Zimmermann is editor of the Catholic Standard, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington.

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WASHINGTON —When Kris Jenkins got the ball with the score tied in the final seconds of the NCAA men’s basketball championship game April 4, his former high school coach had no doubt that the Villanova junior would make the shot.

Villanova Wildcats forward Kris Jenkins (2) reacts after the 77-74 win over the North Carolina Tar Heels April 4 in the championship game of the 2016 NCAA Men’s Final Four in Houston. Jenkins is a 2013 graduate of Gonzaga College High School in Washington. (CNS photo/Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports via Reuters)

The three-point, buzzer-beater by Jenkins clinched the game for the Wildcats and was essentially “the same shot from the same spot” he had made countless times before, said Steve Turner, head basketball coach for Gonzaga College High School in Washington, where Jenkins played forward and was the team captain.

The coach, watching Villanova play North Carolina on television with his wife and friends, couldn’t have been happier for his former player when his jump shot gave the Wildcats a 77-74 victory just as the clock ran out.

One day after the big game, when he and Jenkins were both on the media circuit talking basketball, he couldn’t wait to talk to him and congratulate him personally.

Jenkins, a 2013 graduate of the Jesuit high school, who played all four years, calls Turner whenever he is in town. The two talked after recent NCAA tournament games.

The enthusiasm from the previous night’s game at NRG Stadium in Houston before an announced crowd of 74,340 was going strong the next morning at Gonzaga. There was “such a feeling of joy” and everyone was “excited for Kris on the big stage,” Turner told Catholic News Service April 5. “We’re one big proud community and one big proud family,” he added.

The school’s website immediately posted a video clip of the game’s final seconds.

Turner said what made Jenkins such a good player in high school, where he won Gatorade District of Columbia player of the year two years in a row, was “his ability to work so hard and continue to be a leader,” not just in scoring “but leading by example and being a true student-athlete working hard in the classroom and on the court.”

Another sidelight to the NCAA championship game was that Jenkins was playing against his brother on the opposing team, Tar Heels guard Nate Britt. The Britt family, who met Jenkins through basketball, adopted Jenkins in 2007 when Jenkins’ mother, Felicia, had a job offer coaching basketball in South Carolina and thought her son would do better academically, and could continue playing basketball, with the Britts.

On “Good Morning America” just hours after his winning shot was viral news, Jenkins credited his mom for teaching him how to shoot.

“She started with me when I was young and she even coaches me on my shots still to this day,” he said, adding she was shocked he was left open to make the winning shot.

“We were both stunned,” he added.

Villanova’s win was its second men’s national title. The previous time the school won the national title was in 1985 when it beat Georgetown University. That also was the last time a Catholic college or university won the men’s national basketball championship.

In celebration, the school was closed April 4 and a parade for the team is scheduled to take place in Philadelphia April 8.